My Turn: A Femifesto by Marcia Mount Shoop

It’s coming up on a year now that pretty much everything changed in my family’s life. My over twenty years of married life, up until last year around this time, our lives had been built around my husband’s job. John’s work as a coach in the NFL and Division I collegiate football had moved us all over the country—coast to coast and in between.

This time last year our move was for me to take a job. No more football. And a move not for football meant massive shifts in the daily life of our family.

I cannot count the number of times since I took this new job that people have said to me, “Finally, it’s your turn!”

Most often this comment comes from other women, with a celebratory, triumphant tone. As if, after all my years of catering to John’s profession, now I finally get to be the one whose profession is being catered to in our family.

The first few times someone said, “It’s your turn,” I felt myself being squished into a container that was someone else’s reality. It was curious to me how people over-laid that interpretation on my life when it resonated so little with me. As I continue to hear this comment, it has become the cause of some critical thinking and some feelings of being unseen and misunderstood.

And so begins what some may label as a “feminist rant,” but what I prefer to call my “femifesto” on what this new chapter in my professional life actually says about me as a feminist.

First of all, I did not wait in the wings for twenty-one years for “my turn.” All along I have adapted to make my family structure work, but I never gave up investing in the work I love to do. I had life-giving work in every place we moved for John to coach football. And I improvised at every turn. I wouldn’t trade the skills I learned and the discoveries I have made about my own creativity and about the things I truly love to do.

My improvisational career gave me freedom from some of the constraining and life-diminishing aspects of institutionally dependent work. In fact, I reentered institutionally dependent work with this new job with more than a little trepidation. I don’t want to spend my energy propping up institutions—especially institutions that have been such prominent carriers of patriarchy and white supremacy. Ecclesia and Academia (the two institutions I am trained to work in) certainly have done more than their fair share to care and feed for both these oppressive cultures.

So, my second answer to the “it’s your turn” comment is: if it were really “my turn” to get to finally follow my professional dreams, I would not imagine a job for myself in which I have to work so hard just to do the work I love. My dream is not to spend so many hours and so much energy working in and around structures and functions created by white men who were working with templates of power I reject.

Which brings me to the third and final point of this femifesto on this particular woman’s work: this job isn’t my turn to get to do what I love; it’s my latest attempt to trust and respond to the twists and turns of life. I do not feel like I had much choice in the matter in how this all unfolded, if the truth were told. That doesn’t mean I was powerless in the decisions we made; it means life arises on causes and conditions that shape our horizons and possibilities.

My family made a choice to leave the world of football. And we decided to open ourselves up to new and unexpected possibilities. The job I have now as Pastor/Head of Staff in a Presbyterian Church USA congregation is a good fit for me and I am grateful for the Divine provisions in such a mysterious turn of events. My husband and I didn’t switch places, we took a leap of faith once again together. In that way, the decision to say yes to this job used the same spiritual muscles for trust and risk that all the other moves we’ve made have included.

And how are these three points the stuff of a femifesto, you may ask? Well because these points should make it easy to see that I am, indeed, a feminist. After all, feminism is not about power over, either/or thinking, or individualism. Feminism is a constructive interruption of those ways of navigating the world. Feminism is about relationships and mutuality. It is also about the health of a society being tangled up with what room there is for women to be generative, creative, and empowered to be ourselves, idiosyncrasies and all. We cannot essentialize women’s experiences, nor can we extract women’s agency from the systems and cultures that help to shape our complicated lives.

This new chapter in my life means that through my job I am paying more of the bills now than I was before. It also means there are some things I had to give up—flexibility in schedule, being an available parent, ample space for creativity and rest, and an income level that my work can never match in terms of my husband’s former earning capacity. I also have gained some things—new colleagues, a community that has called me here to invest in it over time, and a place to call home that won’t shift and change with the vagaries of football.

Sometimes I miss the way my life was before I took this job. And I have a lot of clarity and peace that being here is where my family and I belong right now. Far from my turn to lead the way in my family, it’s my family’s time to relearn the power of coming together for a purpose bigger than ourselves.

Oh, love this and can relate. With my first husband, an Air Force pilot and then airline pilot, I, too, gave up ‘my career’ and followed him around the country. Although I did not give up my life. I, too, improvised and learned and did what has really been most important to me anyhow, raising my children. Oh my! Doesn’t that smack of anti-feminism. Now nearing 50 and through a series of life’s turns, I find myself being handed the ‘financial responsibility’ for our family. “Feminism is a constructive interruption of those ways of navigating the world. Feminism is about relationships and mutuality. It is also about the health of a society being tangled up with what room there is for women to be generative, creative, and empowered to be ourselves, idiosyncrasies and all.” … so well said!!!!

Thank you, Karen. I appreciate your affirmation and your story, too. Life is complicated! I like to think feminism at its best gives us a way to theorize and construct out of that complication. There is more to say, to be sure. I am sure we’d have a lot of stories to share. I am grateful to have connected here.
Peace,
Marcia

What is PCUSA? Protestant something? What is your husband doing now? Does he miss coaching? I’m glad you took your leap of faith together. And “femifesto”–it’s fun to invent words, isn’t it! Thanks for writing this interesting post.

Thank you, Barbara. My husband is doing many things–parenting, recovering from 26 years of a very intense career, substitute teaching in the public schools, serving the community and our church in all sorts of ways. Thank you for commenting.
Peace,
Marcia

I love your ‘femisfesto’ Marcia. I took from your article that we cannot always know what affect our off-hand remarks might make to someone. Even well-intended, “It’s your turn now!” the phrase left you feeling misunderstood and not recognized. Your experience, like my own and so many others, also show a newly realized characteristic of ‘successful’ women; we are flexible and adaptable. I define success not in terms of our materialistic culture, but in very personal terms of what is fulfilling and necessary for our own lives. While I would not consider the ending of my eighteen-year marriage a success, the freedom from abuse and personal growth I’ve experienced in the nearly twenty years since have been a direct result of my ability to adapt to new opportunities (as you did), and be flexible in my approach to life. Thank you for a wonderful article.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Yes, you are right, success is framed very differently. It is about well being. And the ability to adapt and respond and make life where you are directly feed well being. And letting things that need to be over, to pass away also nourishes well being. And it takes a lot of courage to do that sometimes. I celebrate your freedom and growth–and your courage and adaptability!
Peace,
Marcia

From L.I.F.T. To Lake County United to Caring for Creation and beyond, all the gifts you brought to First Pres. embodied your unique skill set and blessings as a thoughtful intelligent leader. To me, being a feminist is simply being the best person you can be in whatever you are doing. That you did and do for your partner and family, for First Pres., through your travels and now to the congregation in Asheville. Simple – Go Marcia!!! 😊

Thank you Marcia. I was struck by the way in which stereotyped responses (such as “it’s your turn”) come, at least partly, from not taking the time to ask and listen and seek to understand the perspective we are encountering. When we open ourselves up by offering something of our lives to another we risk receiving a stereotyped response that does not fit because of a lack of understanding. I’m trying hard not to make such quick ‘stock’ comments (it’s not easy when life is busy) and it leads to much more interesting and significant conversations.

I also reflect on the idea of taking turns – necessary for conversation – and the different ways in which that word is used, some helpfully, some less so – and certainly when associated with pre-eminence or control then these are the elements that make the phrase less helpful in the context in which it has been said to you.

Thank you for this wonderful and thought-provoking post.

May your new work bring you much delight and may you find the creativity, flexibility and strength to challenge the structural aspects that are less life-giving.

Thank you, Margaret. I agree that finding a quick way to categorize a person’s experience is something it’s hard not to do. We all do it! Listening deeply takes time and intentionality, and we don’t always have space for either in our days.
Here’s to time and space for deeper connections and understanding–that would certainly help to heal some of the deep wounds of our world.
Peace,
Marcia